Pull plug on power stuggles to get ahead

Glasser’s theory states that the reason people don’t get along is because they try to change others instead of understanding how to make conscious choices.

When you try to change others, it creates a power struggle. Power struggles keep the drama alive, and that drama becomes a vicious circle.

Gary Zukav in his book, “Heart of the Soul,” writes that a power struggle occurs when your desire to manipulate and control another conflicts with their desire to manipulate and control you. In other words, there are two opposing forces at work.

The result is relationship drama.

Evidence of relationship drama is significant on the personal and professional level: There are more than 2.4 million divorces in the United States every year and 60 percent of second marriages also end in divorce. In addition, research indicates that a significant number of people who quit their jobs often do so because they did not trust or get along with their bosses.

How do you know for sure when there is a power struggle going on? There are several ways to identify the power struggles, including observing behaviors and noticing emotional responses. For example, a power struggle can manifest as sarcasm, insults, self-righteousness and guilt trips.

Other indicators include insubordination, passive aggressive behavior, pouting, withdrawal, anger and competitiveness.

These behaviors indicate an underlying intention to control or manipulate someone else.

For example, you give some unwelcome feedback to a work associate and you get the silent treatment. The silent treatment is an attempt to punish the person who gave the hurtful feedback instead of honestly admitting that the feedback was hurtful or choosing to examine the kernel of truth in the feedback.

Those who use sarcasm are playing a more aggressive game to hide their resentment. People who resort to sarcasm to get the last word lack the courage to address the root of the problem: hidden anger. It’s easier to use sarcasm to vent some unresolved resentment than it is to honestly address a relationship problem.

At the same time, people often encourage or overlook sarcasm as long as it doesn’t affect them personally. We often admire the quick-witted, and we laugh at their manipulation tactics instead of challenging them to confront the problem directly.

Very few people have the courage to call people on their sarcastic slams. The reason is because they already know the response they will get: The person dispensing the sarcasm will simply respond by justifying the behavior in some fashion, such as, “You need to lighten up. It’s only a joke.”

To some degree, a power struggle is the need to prove who is right and who is wrong.

David Burns, M.D., a clinical professor of psychiatry at the Stanford University School of Medicine says that when people abandon the “need to be right” and examine their own roles in problems, it makes a huge difference.

Of course neither the person who was hurt nor the sarcastic person ever feels that he was wrong.

When the interactions around you produce stress and disrupt your peace, lower your productivity, or create resistance, communication normally gets the blame: “It’s a communication problem” you will hear people say. The truth of the matter is it’s a relationship problem, and the communication is just the symptom of an underlying power struggle.

What would be possible if everyone quit trying to manipulate and control and just focused on getting along? If you want to gain more power in your life, you might try Glasser’s philosophy: “The powerful would find that there is more power in getting along with people than in trying to dominate them.”

Marlene Chism, president of ICARE Presentations in Springfield, works with companies that want to build strong business relationships and with individuals who want to be better communicators.

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